Ivana Ivković

IN HIM WE TRUST is a site-specific performance directed by Ivana Ivković.
The eight-hour long performance will be happening on 31 January at BITEF Theatre, from 7 PM until 3 AM on 1 February.

“In Him We Trust” is the last part of a trilogy and the continuation of two previous site-specific works: “Lines, rows, columns (Dormitory)” and “Babylon the Great”. All three works are inspired by psychological processes of taking responsibility for one’s own life, active work on oneself and making independent stance from the imposed norms and expectations of society. The works draw attention to the constructs of social order but also our personal ones, whether they concern the challenges of honest communication and ideas of belief within ourselves and with the others.

The works examine the personal relationships on issues of gender identity and integrity, trying to understand and interpret the limits of one’s own / female perspectives in perceiving and understanding the otherness – men. In these performative installations, the male body is experienced both as a subject and as an object. In the process of understanding and encountering the other who is desired and longed for, and starting from our own vulnerabilities and exposures, by replacing the classic and expected roles of representations, the naked and exposed male body becomes a medium of sensitivity, discomfort and sensuality.

The durational performance “In Him We Trust” deals with the topic of trust and re-examines what we believe in through the recreation of the well- known scene of The Last Judgment. The Judgment Day represents the belief of eschatological religions in the last and final judgment which at the end of history will be performed over people to separate them: the righteous man will receive eternal life as a reward and the sinful man will have the final death as punishment.

Performers play the roles from the standard iconography of this composition that becomes alive and moving. The work is intended to be performed once as an eight-hour site-specific performance. It is directly related to the building of BITEF Theatre – a never completed cathedral of the Evangelical church. During the performance, the audience will be able to come and go, sit, observe or contemplate a reenactment of the religious composition, which doesn’t only enlivens a particular scene or event but engages the potential of the object itself by transgressing to its original purpose. Body and movement are a key factor and an emotional association to the work. The scene is shaped by a spontaneous choreography made by natural body movement of the performers who are free to interact without acting while performing on a scaffolding construction that simulates the renaissance impression of perspective. The work emphasizes the direct and intimate confrontation with one of the most representative biblical themes which is brought into life – happens, improvises, transforms and lasts in front of the audience.”

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Visual design by Saša Tkačenko.